Deeplinks Blog posts about Online Behavioral Tracking

Facebook scolded the Drug Enforcement Administration this week after learning that a narcotics agent had impersonated a user named Sondra Arquiett on the social network in order to communicate and gather intelligence on suspects. In a strongly worded letter to DEA head Michele Leonhart, Facebook’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan reiterated that not only did the practice explicitly violate the site’s terms of service, but threatened Facebook’s trust-based social ecosystem.

Sullivan writes:

Facebook has long made clear that law enforcement authorities are subject to these policies. We regard the conduct to be a knowing and serious breach of Facebook’s terms and policies, and the account created by the agent in the Arquiett matter has been disabled.

Today EFF Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula is speaking at an FTC workshop on big data and its impact on privacy, prompted by the recent reports on big data by the White House as well as the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Our major point at the workshop will be that many seem to be putting the cart before the horse when it comes to big data: before we as a society start worrying about how we can mitigate big data’s privacy risks, we think its proponents first need to show that their analyses are statistically valid. In other words, we need proof that big data is good science and not just snake oil.

We've just seen some amazing reports from the Washington Post about just a few ways NSA is tracking people around the Internet and the physical world. These newly-revealed techniques hijacked personal information that was being transmitted for some commercial purpose, converting it into a tool for surveillance. One technique involved web cookies, while another involved mobile apps disclosing their location to location-based services.

Google recently announced an update to its Terms of Service, focused on displaying your profile name and photo next to advertisements and reviews. The new feature, which goes into effect on November 11, is called Shared Endorsements and will allow you to share your recommendations (whether a +1 on Google Play or a restaurant rating on Google Maps) with your connections.

Acxiom, a data broker that collects 1,500 data points per person on over 700 million consumers total and sells analysis of such information, is trying to ward off federal privacy regulations by flaunting transparency—a diluted term, in this case—around user data. The company just launched AboutTheData.com, a site that will let users see and edit some information that Acxiom has about them—only "some," since Acxiom's analytics reveal far more information about you (living habits and personal preferences) that isn't readily available to you, but is sold to partner companies.